36

I also posted this on the Wolfram Community site (link below)

Last week I attended the Wolfram Tour (which was great). I asked whenever we could expect a new version of Workbench, as the current (public) version 2 is very out dated. They responded that they use a more up to date version internally at Wolfram (with some sort of automatic update system) but this version has not been made public as it would require some effort to create a distributional version of it. The reason that they did not invest in this is probably that Workbench has not got many users, and therefor the effort to create a public version is too great in comparison to the number of users.

edit: The main reason for me to use Workbench is to create native Mathematica documentation. Also the breakpoints (and I do not lose my work if Mathematica crashes) are very usefull.

They advised us to create a public topic on this and ask for support of the community to make this a higher priority at Wolfram. Please let me (and wolfram) know that you are also interested in a new version of the Wolfram Workbench: http://community.wolfram.com/groups/-/m/t/870444

Edit: Apparently there is an up-to-date version of the eclipse plugin: http://support.wolfram.com/kb/27221.

Frank Martin
  • 1,145
  • 6
  • 17
  • 3
    I would like a Wolfram Workbench version for linux. Last time I tried it the installation was an absolute pain (and needed a bug report for WRI to send me an executable which worked) and the functionality was not all there, if I remember correctly. I would like the Workbench to be fully cross-platform (or as cross-platform as MM itself is). Devs tend to favour linux over windows more than the average user does, and Workbench is a product for devs - so what gives? – Emilio Pisanty Jun 10 '16 at 16:28
  • 2
    I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because an appeal for support of a little-used Wolfram product is not a question. – m_goldberg Jun 10 '16 at 21:33
  • 5
    @m_goldberg same story but kept: Are you interested in purchasing David Wagner's “Power programming with Mathematica”? – Kuba Jun 10 '16 at 23:04
  • 4
    @Kuba. But that was a specific question about taking a specific action, not just a plea for support. Posts like these are very much in a gray area. I will not be upset if the community disagrees with my assessment. – m_goldberg Jun 11 '16 at 00:56
  • 12
    I`d rather have some features from Workbench integrated into Mathematica e.g. an straight-forward way to create my own package documentation – Sascha Jun 11 '16 at 08:30
  • @Sascha Yes, I think that's the main point. Perhaps you can comment in the Community thread. – Szabolcs Jun 11 '16 at 09:10
  • 2
    @Szabolcs I don't have an account on Wolfram Community and think if someone known there (like you yourself maybe) suggested this, it would probably generate more attention. – Sascha Jun 11 '16 at 15:27
  • Related: 5184 since the question also begs the question "What are there alternatives to Workbench?" -- where this includes the answer "Front End", saying "it is as good as an IDE and there is maybe little additional benefit in using one". – gwr Jun 13 '16 at 09:10
  • @Kuba Arguably both should have went on meta ... and both can still be migrated. – Szabolcs Jun 15 '16 at 18:21
  • @Kuba That post was also CW -- somehow the site is more tolerant of CW posts that are opinion-based or broad. – Michael E2 Jun 19 '16 at 13:23

4 Answers4

17

Are you interested in a Wolfram Workbench Update?

No, because it is based on Eclipse, and I prefer IntelliJ IDEA. The Mathematica plugin for IntelliJ IDEA is absolutely great and fairly sufficient for what I do.

Many of my (ex-)co-workers at WRI use(d) Wolfram Workbench and are(were) productive with it. I never particularly liked it because of Eclipse. (At WRI I used Emacs. I am a fan.) At this point I have a fair amount of experience of using Eclipse and custom IDEs based on Eclipse, like IBM ILOG CPLEX Optimization Studio -- I still would avoid Eclipse.

(In this post I talk only about development, not including documentation writing -- see the comments.)

More links

I mostly wrote this answer to make people more aware of the Mathematica plug-in for IntelliJ IDEA.

More constructive responses / posts than this one can be found in the Community discussion "Wolfram Workbench Update".

Anton Antonov
  • 37,787
  • 3
  • 100
  • 178
  • 7
    Currently I am using IntelliJ IDEA with the Mathematica plugin, which is indeed great. But the main reason for me to use Workbench is to build the documentation and run unit tests. – Frank Martin Jun 11 '16 at 21:43
  • @FrankMartin Good points. I use Mathematica's FrontEnd for documentation and tests. – Anton Antonov Jun 11 '16 at 21:59
  • @AntonAntonov But the official documentation builder is only available with the Workbench, no? – Szabolcs Jun 12 '16 at 11:50
  • @Szabolcs I think I have/had a different type of documentation in mind than what you and Frank (and probably the rest of MSE and Community) are talking about. My current documentation activities are mostly articles and blog posts describing usage/functionality of some algorithms I work on. (And I am increasingly becoming partial to Markdown.) Also, I do try to spell out the necessary usage/functionality knowledge inside the packages I make. I guess, all this explains why the IntelliJ Mathematica plug-in is sufficient for me. – Anton Antonov Jun 12 '16 at 12:45
  • 4
    @Anton I also don't use the documentation tools, I find it too much trouble. But if they were built into Mathematica (instead of requiring Workbench) I would at least consider using them. – Szabolcs Jun 12 '16 at 12:51
  • 1
    @Szabolcs Agreed. Currently I use R 75% of the time and RStudio helped a lot to become a more advanced R user with its incorporation of a variety of tools like the tools for making packages and automated reports and writing documentation, presentations, and articles. – Anton Antonov Jun 12 '16 at 13:06
  • @QuantumDot I did want to start a vivid discussion. Please consider voting to reopen and commenting on a similar discussion at Community. – Anton Antonov Jun 12 '16 at 14:41
  • Oops; scathing comment deleted. But I still disagree with you -1. ;) – QuantumDot Jun 12 '16 at 16:40
  • @QuantumDot Please, do disagree. – Anton Antonov Jun 12 '16 at 18:03
  • @FrankMartin I should have linked the Community post earlier... – Anton Antonov Jun 12 '16 at 20:42
  • @AntonAntonov but the eclipse version can't generate paclets with doc notebooks, that's an issue – M.R. May 20 '18 at 22:27
13

I installed it for a short while, played with it somewhat and then decided it was not for me. I have been using IDEs for various languages and environments, but my development style for Mathematica programs just doesn't work in an IDE. I don't write huge programs, but mostly use Mathematica as a research tool, test concepts or do some data processing.

Mathematica programming for me is a continuous write-test cycle where I most often test on a line-by-line basis (or even function-by-function). I find the Frontend to be the most suited for that, although I wish it had better support for things as profiling, debugging, versioning and refactoring. Besides, the Frontend supports advanced typesetting which the Workbench doesn't.

Sjoerd C. de Vries
  • 65,815
  • 14
  • 188
  • 323
  • 2
    You can still have a notebook in Workbench, edit it in the FrontEnd, and with AutoGeneratedPackage -> Automatic get the corresponding .m file automatically. That is sometimes useful if typsetting is important (which it rarely is in programming, e.g. here). I find Workbench 3 (and Halirutans great IntelliJ plugin) indispensible also for organizing my projects and for collaborating with others. Next time I am in NL I can try to show you various work-flows. – Rolf Mertig Jun 20 '16 at 21:23
  • I know. As to typesetting: I like to have my equations look as printed. Easier to spot errors and so. – Sjoerd C. de Vries Jun 20 '16 at 21:30
  • @Rolf You're welcome to convince me. – Sjoerd C. de Vries Jun 20 '16 at 21:43
8

I certainly would like to see a Workbench that worked. After spending the money for the thing, and locating a very old version of Eclipse for Windows to run it on, I could not make Workbench do anything. Since as a Mathematica Home Edition user, I am not entitled to technical support, and for lack of time, I gave up on Workbench. I have to believe that if WR charges money for a piece of software, it should be Plug-n-Play, fit for the use for which it is intended, and sufficiently supported so the user can do useful work with it. Some good documentation would help too.

CElliott
  • 560
  • 2
  • 7
  • 6
    Could you please leave your story (if you have not done it already) also at the Wolfram Community website: http://community.wolfram.com/groups/-/m/t/870444 – Frank Martin Jun 15 '16 at 12:38
6

I use it only for running tests. I have been trying to migrate to the new testing notebooks but I keep finding problems with them. Considering that the Wolfram Language is now free (Raspberry Pi), I think that the Workbench plug-in should be open sourced. Also needed are syntax highlighting modes for major text editors.

Gustavo Delfino
  • 8,348
  • 1
  • 28
  • 58
  • 3
    I also used to use the testing tools in the Workbench, but found so many problems with the new version-10.0 builtin testing tool that I didn't use it. Those problem may have been fixed since v10.0, but I didn't try them afterwards. – Szabolcs Jun 15 '16 at 18:15
  • @Gustavo, could you please also share your post on the Mathematica Community?: http://community.wolfram.com/groups/-/m/t/870444 – Frank Martin Jun 20 '16 at 15:21